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The Kodiak Island Volleyball Club wrapped up its games at the Phoenix Volleyball Festival Thursday and nabbed a top-12 finish.

For four days the girls have been playing against some of the top club teams in the country, and came out as the highest ranked Alaska team in their division. Merissa Koller-Williams coached the girls and said they played a total of 11 games and took 11th place out of 35 teams.
She said Kodiak’s club was unique because it consisted of members that will all be playing for the same high school team this upcoming school year.

“Almost every team there is
able to pull girls from different high schools. Their teams represent
general areas of their state. They can stack their team according to
their needs and their level of play. So our girls represent the island,
the high school team, essentially. So they had no idea how they were
going to fit in to this tournament. So the first day they came in and
won their first game, it was shaky – not the best volleyball they’ve
played. And then they lost to the next two teams, but once they got
comfortable on Tuesday they came out to win. They beat a couple of
really good, really scrappy teams. They really wanted to be on that
championship bracket. .”

Koller-Williams said the girls were playing in the Phoenix
Convention Center, and the first floor alone had more than 40 volleyball
nets. She said she is very proud of the girls and how they represented
Kodiak.
“They really held their own.
They are definitely fighters and it means really good things for our
upcoming high school season. I am extremely proud of how they finished.
You know being in the top third, coming from Alaska, is a pretty big
feat.”
Summer McKechnie (Mc-kec-nee) is the team’s captain and said the whole experience was incredible.
“I think it was a really,
really good experience for us. And we got to see people that we’re not
going to see during high school season. It was like another season for
us pretty much. We played three games a day, they each had three matches
probably. Other clubs they were the best people from all around the
region, and ours was just our high school team. So we did pretty good
considering it wasn’t an all star team you know, it was just our high
school team pretty much. So that’s pretty promising for the season
coming up.”
The Kodiak High School volleyball season is set to start in August.